Burnt
by Texas Drought
Summary: The most common tale is of Queen Fora, a barren woman who lived on an island and ate its children. The mothers of the island supposedly wept so hard, they poisoned the sea with their tears until a god cursed Queen Fora to birth all the children she'd consumed. It's said Queen Fora's blood stained the hair of the children and their descendants for all time. They are the Red People.


Tu Lya woke in the Boiling Sea. Her mind was full of pain she did not understand but she knew the Boiling Sea by the feel of the water. The salt of it chafed and pricked her entire body, her eyes and lips bearing the brunt of the irritation.

There was nothing quite like the over-salted water of the Boiling Sea. Tu Lya had learned this as a child from playing in the sea behind her family's house. The seawater was a shocking blue and white crystals covered the beaches like some fantastic paradise. She had not understood why the villagers shunned the water and the children only ever played in the muddy inland lakes. They called the place dangerous but a Tu Lya of six had paid that no mind and made a day exploring it all.

Her mother had screamed when she saw Tu Lya in the Boiling Sea and Tu Lya still remembered her mother's desperate fury to reach her. She had dropped her basket of washings and torn through the barren yard. Only when her mother had scooped Tu Lya out of the water did Tu Lya notice the purple scales spreading across her limbs. Swollen veins bulged through the furious skin, the same blue as the water. Footprints and handprints dotted the salted beach and at some point they had become filled with blood. In a few hours Tu Lya went blind.

When the healing people of the village came to watch Tu Lya die, they explained that this was how the water was. That, after a certain point, the water numbed its victims and made it so they didn't feel it kill them. It had poisoned Tu Lya in the same manner and she was not expected to live the night.

Tu Lya did not remember much about that night but her father told her once (just once) very sadly that she had just kept breathing. "Breathe, my love," Tu Lya's mother would always say to her after that night. In her mother's mind, Tu Lya's breathing had defeated the sea.

"And the sea and everything beyond is death."

An old healing woman said this towards the end of Tu Lya's months of recovery, when all that was left of the sea was a phantom itch on Tu Lya's back.

Her father had dismissed the last of the healing people (they had lingered with suspicious faces and upset Tu Lya) but her mother had insisted that the old woman stay. Tu Lya didn't see why. She could see again and her skin had assumed a human color and she saw no need for a healer, especially this one. The woman was clearly different. Her worn face was grim and firm but not unkind and, as young as Tu Lya was, she knew the woman was speaking to her as an adult.

"You've survived death," she said, "but there is always a price."

This frightened Tu Lya and she looked to her mother behind the old woman. She wanted her mother to make the old woman leave, but the months spent tending a dying daughter had devastated her mother and the weary woman only watched the floor in silence.

"Nothing grows near the sea," the old woman continued and she looked pointedly at Tu Lya to say the rest.

"F-for salt kills life," Tu Lya managed for she wanted to be brave for her mother but all this talk of death and killing was making it difficult.

The old woman moved closer and placed a cold, wrinkled hand on Tu Lya's stomach. Immediately, Tu Lya's mother began to sob.

"The price is your children."

But Tu Lya was in the sea again. She could feel the salt rake at her skin and she did not think she could pay such a steep price again. For a moment she considered simply letting the sea have her but fear got the best of her. Death by sea was reserved only for the most wretched of criminals; it was said there was no pain that compared to having the salt inside you.

Tu Lya knew she had to get out of the water but when she tried to swim the calf of her right leg seemed to ignite. Something so terrible had happened to her leg that Tu Lya wondered if it was even still there. She wondered if that was the price this time.

Only when Tu Lya received her first mouthful of burning seawater did she finally punch upward toward the surface despite the pain. To her surprise she had only been a foot or so below the water and her head quickly broke the surface. The salt seared her eyes and stung her throat as she coughed what she had swallowed. Her head throbbed and her right leg raged in the cool water.

For a while Tu Lya did not understand and just fought to keep her head above the water in her agony. Something wet and solid touched Tu Lya's cheek and she flinched before she recognized the feel as wooden. The sting in her eyes soon resided enough for Tu Lya to open them and the moon was bright enough to show her a thick flank floating beside her. The girl reached for the slick wood and pulled her torso out of the water so that the flank sank a few inches in the water but Tu Lya was raised over the dark water.

Around her, Tu Lya saw the burning remains of the ship she had sailed on. It had been small and it only burned long enough for Tu Lya to see it disappear under the black water. By the moon, Tu Lya saw other flanks of wood smaller and larger than the one she held. The bodies of a crewman and the captain floated nearby. They and Tu Lya had been the only ones on deck; the rest had been below deck in the cabins.

Tu Nyldi and her baby, Tu Lya suddenly realized and she couldn't believe it had taken her so long to think of them. That was the price.

The thought brought bile and the rest of the saltwater from Tu Lya's stomach and she could not stand to be another second in the water with her dead children and all the others. When she moved, the pain in her leg intensified and dizzied her, threatening to steal her consciousness and drown her. But if Tu Lya didn't move the water would take her again and she would die all the same.

Paddling with her left arm as her right clutched the flank, Tu Lya swam slowly and tortuously to a small, intact section of the ship's deck that was large enough for her to lie on. She hoisted herself onto the wreckage, whimpering as the fire around her leg burned harder still in the chilly air. From the rip in her pants, Tu Lya saw the split flesh of her calf and watched as hot blood began to flood it and flow down her leg.

She remembered the stories of the monsters of the Boiling Sea. They were all people who had died in the water, cursed to burn forever in the salt and their fury at their fate had turned them into monstrous things. Blood was said to bring the monsters racing and senseless fear began to take Tu Lya, tearing at her stomach and strangling her heart.

Tu Nyldi and her baby.

Tu Lya reached under her longshirt and began to unwrap her breasts, pulling the long white fabric out from under her longshirt. Shaking from cold and terror, Tu Lya guided her clumsy hands around the ruin of her leg pulling the fabric as tightly as she could bear. Her tears were hot and salty, but they only flowed for a moment before Tu Lya awoke in the sun.

The bodies and the rest of the wreckage were all gone with nothing but blue sea for miles and for a moment Tu Lya could scarcely believe it had happened. But then she remembered Tu Nyldi and her baby and she did not move again that day.

For three days Tu Lya burned in the sun. There was no hiding from it, even under her clothes Tu Lya could feel herself roasting. Her skin cracked and bled and the night came with its own freezing torment.

She only moved to wash her leg, still crushed under fear for what lurked under the dark water but desperate not to let the wound fester. (Tu Lya did not know why this was. It wasn't likely she would live through this.) The water was always perfectly still and Tu Lya often wondered if she had moved at all and if she was not still floating right over the ship.

Her thoughts were jumbled and confused with maddening images of home and Tu Nyldi and her baby. The pain in Tu Lya's stomach was the worst of all and on the third day of drifting, Tu Lya could no longer move from it. She had tried not to sleep for fear of falling in the water as she knew she had no chance of making it back onto the raft if she did. On the third day, however, Tu Lya wondered if it would not be kinder to let herself fall after all and she closed her eyes in surrender.

* * *

A splash woke her and Tu Lya found herself in a monstrous shadow. Her raft wobbled as something large plunged into the water and began swimming toward her. To her surprise and disappointment, Tu Lya was still afraid and she began to weep when the thing took ahold of her raft.

"Can you move?"

It was said in the Common Tongue which Tu Lya had learned young, but her throat was so parched she could not possibly answer. The voice continued to speak despite her silence, trying to sound soothing as it said things Tu Lya was not expected to answer.

"I have to take you in the water," it said. "I'm sorry. It will hurt."

Large hands gingerly rolled Tu Lya closer to the edge and strong arms pulled her into the sea. The cracks in her skin and wound on her leg burned with a new fury Tu Lya could not bear. She screamed a hoarse, soundless cry that fell to a choking whimper.

"Just a while longer," it said. "We're nearly-"

* * *

Tu Lya awoke again lying on her back on the deck of a ship. From the solid thunks of feet on the wood of the deck, she knew the ship was enormous, triple the size of the small ship at the bottom of the Boiling Sea.

She was still in the sun and while she burned still, Tu Lya felt people surround her and was shamed by how her wet longshirt stuck revealingly to her unbound breasts. Tu Lya rolled onto her stomach to cover herself, feeling the skin on her back break and scream in protest, but she had to. She needed at least some dignity.

To her left, Tu Lya saw a large wet man and she heard the voice from the raft come from him and argue with a small dry man in black robes, the clothes of the Other Lands. The small dry man shouted things she did not understand, but Tu Lya knew what he meant when he made a motion to throw something overboard.

Tu Lya was still afraid, she realized, this time with passive sadness.

_This is it, _Tu Lya thought and her mind began to melt away_._

* * *

Her mind was heavy and weary from too much sleep but each time she tried to wake, someone would make her drink creamy water that made her sleep again. Tu Lya was too weak to resist and lost track of the days this way, trapped in a maddening cycle of dreams.

Many times she found herself back on the raft, burning and alone in the Boiling Sea. Other times she was safe at home combing her mother's hair or reading beside her father. The cruelest dream was when the ship and Tu Nyldi and her baby made it to the port.

"Tu Lya, _look_!" Tu Nyldi cried on the docks of a strange city, her babe squirming in her arms. "What a marvelously _odd_ place! It doesn't look at all terrible like they say!" Tu Nyldi paused and gave Tu Lya a puzzled look. "…but then again they also say it doesn't always look at all terrible like they say it does, but that it still is and that you shouldn't be fooled. I…I don't quite understand that, I never did, but…why do you think the houses are so tall? Could we have one, do you think? I'd like to live in one. Maybe a blue one like that one over there. What do you think, Tu Lya? Until your uncle comes."

When Tu Lya woke, she was covered in sweat and her throat nearly closed from grief. She managed a few shaking breaths before she thought of the impending cream water.

"No…more," Tu Lya choked out to the ceiling, but the cup of cream water still came to her lips. "St…op. Stop." The cream water flooded her mouth, but Tu Lya could not bear to dream again and spat it up on her chin. "Stop! _Stop it_! _Please_!"

The cup was pulled back and Tu Lya finally managed a look at her tormenter. A fat girl with a shamefully large bosom stood over Tu Lya. She peered curiously down at Tu Lya looking both hurt and annoyed.

"_All right_, then. _All right_," she said. "There's no need to shout."

The situation stunned Tu Lya, her head cloudy from sleep, and she wondered hazily if she should apologize but thirst won over guilt.

"May…" Tu Lya struggled to wet her raw throat. "May I have some…normal…water, please?"

The fat girl gave her an odd look. "_Normal_ water? How do you mean?"

Tu Lya was annoyed. "Water that won't…make me sleep," she clarified even though it ravaged her throat to do so.

"Oh," the fat girl said softly and she held up the goblet of cream water. "This is milk of the poppy, not water, but I don't think you'd like water, either. The wells are funny again and it's not quite safe to drink water at the moment." The fat girl moved to a table near Tu Lya's bed and poured purple water into a clay cup. "Here's some wine, though."

The fat girl propped up Tu Lya's head and dribbled the purple water into her mouth. It tasted of spoiled fruit and Tu Lya nearly choked on the acrid drink, but forced herself to swallow. It sat badly in her stomach and did little to sooth her throat. Tu Lya turned down a second cup.

"Say," the fat girl said as she replaced the cup on the table beside them. "I've been wondering something for a while, now." She shifted nervously on her heels for a moment, but then looked back at Tu Lya. "Why haven't you got any hair?"

But Tu Lya was more concerned about where all her clothes had gone. She could only vaguely feel her body but she was almost certain that she was naked under the thin white sheet covering her.

"Where are my clothes?" Tu Lya asked. She tried to move, but her body was unbearably heavy. A horrible shock went through her right leg when she tried to move it and Tu Lya gasped at the pain.

"Try not to move," the fat girl said. "Yes, you probably can't feel it right now on account of the milk, but you were burned badly when Sir Karver pulled you out of the sea." She gently pulled out Tu Lya's left arm to show her.

Tu Lya sucked in a pained breath and looked away. The skin was an angry red, almost purple, and covered in thick white flakes. She could only imagine what the rest of her looked like.

"I know," the fat girl said not unkindly. "But the maestar says it's actually much better now and that it's healing. Another week or so and we can scrape off the top and then in a month or two you'll be normal."

"…and my leg?" Tu Lya asked.

The fat girl's frown frightened her. "The maestar says the salt kept it clean and it didn't fester, so there's no need to take it off. There's a chance it'll work well enough, but you probably won't feel it anymore and it'll scar bad." The fat girl gave her a weak smile. "It could be worse, though, I think."

Tu Lya tried to accept the comfort but it weighed little in her mind.

"Where am I?" Tu Lya asked. She almost didn't but her father had told her to be brave in the Other Lands.

"Farbourne," the fat girl replied. "It's an island off of Dorne."

Dorne, Tu Lya thought to herself. The poppy milk still clouded her head, but Tu Lya managed to recall a map of the Other Lands from her lessons. Dorne was the southernmost kingdom by the Summer Sea. Tu Lya had needed to land mountains away in Old Towne and even then, her uncle's land was even farther north.

"And whose bed is this?" Tu Lya continued weakly.

"Sir Henrick Karver's," the fat girl replied. "The house is his too. He said he'd get you to wherever you needed to be when he got back."

The words revived Tu Lya a little. Not everything was lost; she could still get to her uncle's and maybe in a few years even return home.

"When will he be back?" Tu Lya asked, her chest tight with hope and dread.

The fat girl frowned again. "Unfortunately, a war's just started."

The words did not have a clear effect on Tu Lya, mostly because she did not completely understand them. Tu Lya had heard of the Other Lands and their wars, but beyond the rumored savageries they inflicted on each other, she knew nothing about them.

"Well, how long does a war take?" Tu Lya demanded.

The fat girl seemed to find the question strange and eyed Tu Lya suspiciously, wary of being made foolish.

"_How long_?" Tu Lya repeated.

The fat girl's expression turned to pity. "You'll be here a while."


End file.
